For astronaut at Johnson Space Center, 'you have to be perfect'

Janet Kavandi has fulfilled every child’s dream of someday flying into space.

John Hacker

Janet Kavandi has fulfilled every child’s dream of someday flying into space.

Since her last space flight in 2001, her career has been firmly rooted on the ground, helping prepare other astronauts and support personnel for flights in the space shuttle and beyond.

Kavandi works as deputy director of flight crew operations at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, an office that doesn’t receive a lot of publicity but still plays a vital role in making sure the people who fly the shuttle and associated aircraft are ready when the time comes.

Kavandi was in Florida last week for a shuttle launch to the International Space Station that had to be scrubbed because of a small hydrogen leak.

The launch last week of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, pushed the shuttle’s launch back to July.

“If you’ve been following this last mission that was supposed to launch last week, or even the mission to Hubble, you can have one tiny piece of hardware that would have a chip in it or a ding in it or it didn’t quite meet up right, as was the case on this last attempt, a ground piece didn’t quite meet up right and mate with a piece on the external tank,” Kavandi said.

“Because there is the potential for catastrophic consequences, we cannot launch, we just cannot do it, so we have to go in and form teams and investigate the problem. So it brings to light that the tiniest piece of hardware, a screw, or a popit, or a plate where someone doesn’t do their job perfectly right, it brings everything to a halt. It can’t just be close, you have to be perfect with your job.”

As deputy director of flight crew operations, Kavandi works with former U.S. Navy fighter pilot and four-flight shuttle veteran Brent Jett, director of flight crew operations.

“The flight crew operations director is over the astronaut office and it’s also over the aircraft operations division where we supply all the aircraft we use for astronaut training, and other types of aircraft we use here at the Johnson Space Center,” Kavandi said. “So the WB-57 (a photo-observation plane) and the Guppy (a transport plane) and the shuttle training aircraft and the T-38s (jet training plane) primarily, those are the aircraft we supply, so all of the pilots and the support people that keep the airplanes flying, we assign.”

Between her last space flight and accepting her current post in 2008, Kavandi has held a variety of posts in NASA, including one that played a critical role in helping deal with a disaster.

Columbia aftermath

From July 12 to 24, 2001, Kavandi participated in her third space mission, STS-104, the 10th construction mission to the International Space Station.

On that mission, she and the other six shuttle astronauts and the three crew members of the station installed Quest, an airlock that allows station crew members to exit the station and conduct space walks.

Less than two years later, on Feb. 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated on return from a 14-day science mission, killing the seven astronauts on board.

The accident hit Kavandi particularly hard because three of Columbia’s crew were part of Kavandi’s astronaut class.

“Kalpana Chawla, Rick Husband and Mike Anderson were all in the 1995 class, which made it all the more painful because you know those people, of course, the best because you train with them closely for a couple of years,” Kavandi said. “We had 19 Americans and four internationals in that class.

“It is harder when you know the people very well and they’re some of your best friends. You train knowing that your life depends on these people and theirs depend on you and it’s a tighter bond than I think most people feel with their co-workers.

"It’s more of a family-type bond and you know their families well, because you have family gatherings as classes and your kids play with their kids and you’re spouses get to know their spouses very well so it’s a very close-knit community."

Kavandi, who had just been promoted to branch chief for the International Space Station Branch in NASA, took on a different, more somber job.

“I became the lead casualty and assistance calls officer,” Kavandi said. “That’s a military term and it’s a person who takes care of the families of the fallen soldiers, or in this case, astronauts. I led the team that took care of the families of the Columbia astronauts.”

Kavandi said the job was complicated, but it was a labor of love.

“The loss of one is like a family member lost rather than just an associate lost and it’s so visible, so helping the families keep privacy is important,” she said. “We helped them decide what memorials and services they wanted to attend and so on, and what they felt was appropriate. Plus there the visits with the president of the United States, it included everything from visiting Arlington, to presidential visits to their own private ceremonies.

“Just dealing with the publicity and the aftermath and the investigation was huge. We still to this day, we keep close contact with most of the members and they’re doing well. They’re moving on but it took some considerable time, it was a very traumatic event.”

Carthage Press

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.